1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an endoscope image data filing system and to an endoscope image data managing method for recording a large number of image data in a plurality of recording means and for managing these image data in various modes.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, endoscopes have been widely used to observe a viscus in a coelom on a monitor display and thus to make examination or diagnosis by inserting an insertion unit of the endoscope into the coelom so as to form an image on an image-sensing means such as a solid-state image sensor.
In such an endoscope system, endoscope images obtained with an electronic endoscope unit are stored on a storage medium such as a magneto-optic disk in an image-data filing system so that these endoscope images can be effectively used for later diagnoses. It is required that the system for this purpose can be easily used.
In a first known system for such a purpose, disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 63-153957, an analog image data filing system is combined with a digital image data filing system. More important image data, for example, may be stored in the digital image data filing system and image data which have become less important may be stored in the analog image data filing system.
A second example of a known system is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2-115981, in which an analog image data filing system is combined with a digital image data filing system in such a way that either one of them can be selected to store the image data by performing selection on an endoscope unit.
In a third known system, disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 3-293393 or in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 4-212336, image data obtained in an endoscope examination room are stored in digital form on a magneto-optic disk, then the magneto-optic disk may be transferred to a distant conference room where the recorded image may be played back.
In the first and second known systems described above, a total system comprises an image input unit, a digital image data filing unit, an analog image data filing unit, and a filing controller for controlling these units. When another same type system is used at the same time, data communication between a plurality of the systems is needed. However, there is no description regarding the data management required for such data communication in the above corresponding patent applications.
In the case where a plurality of such systems are used, when previous endoscope image data are required as references for diagnosis it is impossible to make effective retrieval for endoscope image data, because image data are managed separately in each system and no unified management is done.
In the third known system, image data are recorded on a magneto-optic disk in an examination room, then the magneto-optic disk may be transferred to a distant room such as a conference room where the recorded image may be played back. However, there is no description reguarding the management of magneto-optic disks required when a lot of image data for a large number of examinations are recorded on a plurality of magneto-optic disks.
When endoscope image data are retrieved reguarding a certain patient, it is needed to set a magneto-optic disk one after another to an image-data filing system so as to check if the disk includes required image data, because there is no means to tell on which disk the required data are recorded.
In the prior art, as described above, when a plurality of recording media such as magneto-optic disks are used, the system is not easy to use, because unified management is not carried out on these plural recording media.